32 



to 500 B.C. They bad not much bronze, however, and these flint 

 scrapers are the commonest type of implement found among 

 their relics. It is usually supposed that they were used for 

 scraping the skins of animals. Sir Henry Howorth suggests, not 

 very seriously, that they also used them for scraping their own 

 skins. These round-headed, bronze-using men, then, who were 

 buried on the moor tops, formed this Easby earthwork, which of 

 course would have a wooden stockade on its crest. Within this 

 space measuring some 50 yards in one direction by 40 in the 

 other they either lived permanently, or took refuge with their 

 flocks and herds and other belongings in time of danger. 



That materials should exist for a history of Easby from far- 

 away pre-historic time to the present day is, of course, by no 

 means to be expected. All-conquering Eome sent to our Island 

 her legions in the middle of the first century before Christ, and 

 more effectively in the middle of the first century after Christ and 

 they were not finally withdrawn until the year 410. But if any 

 evidence whatever of the Boman occupation exists in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Easby it is yet to be brought to light. Through 

 Cleveland the Romans made roads — straight-up-hill and down- 

 hill roads as was their wont, for they were a go-ahead people, 

 and drove no motors. They passed along these roads from York 

 and other stations to the coast, breaking their journey perbaps on 

 the way now and then for a few days' hunting. Our neighbour- 

 hood was then probably a forest swamp to a great extent, unin- 

 viting for settlers certainly, and not without danger for the 

 intrepid hunter. At the present moment ; there is in Raisdale 

 an unfenced bog into which a beast not long ago fell, and in 

 which it disappeared entirely. And there must have been a 

 great deal of such ground on the Cleveland lowlands 1,800 years 

 ago. It may be that in days to come the sites of these ancient 

 swamps may yield relics of Roman times entombed on some 

 bright day devoted to the risky pleasures of the chase. 



But now let us skip the centuries and come to the Danes who 

 came in swarms upon the Yorkshire Coast in the ninth century. 

 Cleveland appears to have remained to a large extent in its 

 condition of virgin forest until their arrival, They were good 

 farmers, and settled down in dry places, clearing away the trees 

 around them, and bringing the land under the domination of 

 their primitive ploughs. What has Easby to tell us about the 

 Danish period '? The name itself is eloquent in this regard. The 

 Danish farmers, having seized upon lands in Yorkshire, were 

 naturally desirous to " call their lands after their own names." 

 And the name " Easby " and the great majority of place names 



